P.R.I.N.T Summer Internship

This week I continued the group mentions assessment with the researchers in PRINT. Thanks to Casey, this assessment had 8 mentions which meant the researchers were tasked with a somewhat difficult letter. Here is an example of the letter below: 16158 - George Shaw, Bickerstaffe, Lancashire, England to Phineas Pemberton, Pennsylvania, June 16, 1684  "...Dear PP I rcd [received] thy dated ye 27h of the 9h mo: 83 in which I was glad to hear of your wellfare: freinds are generaly well hear a way the last assizes the judge gave in charge they must put the laws in exemption aganst desenters: Justices [Entwistle?/Entwhistle?] & [Haith?] sent warrants to seeke for conventikles meetings ye offecers are prity sivell [civil] att the present: ouer dere [our dear] friend James Fletcher went for Irland [Ireland] this last winter and I recd [received] a letter from him yesterday and he sayeth Wm Edmondson [William Edmondson] is gone ^to^ the West [Ingagues?] [West Antigues/Antigua?] before h

Last week I had mid-term evaluations which were conducted by my project supervisor, Dr. Rosalind Beiler. Dr. Beiler and I discussed how the semester was going and I was asked if I would like to stay on--which I agreed to! I was given excellent marks on my evaluation. Last week I also develop an assessment for researchers to work on together. An important factor in Inter Annotator Agreement is the creation of an open, collaborative environment. A couple weeks ago researchers suggested that we all work on mentions as a group which I happily agreed to. They were presented with a short letter on screen and were instructed to fill out a Microsoft Form together with their answers. Here is the passage: 15866 - Roger Longworth, Rotterdam, Netherlands to James Harrison, n.p., [September] 24, 1679 "...and doe desire to Recaive a few Lines from you, diract them to Stephen Crisp at London or eles wheire I had thought to a write to yoou againe before I went from London, but I went out in hast,

This week I was faced with the most difficult letter yet. The letter I transcribed was sent from James Harrison to Roger Longworth via Susannah Milner. It caught me by surprise due to how close the lines were and type of handwriting. Here is what the letter looked like: As you can infer, it took me a while to get through the letter. I sent in my transcript to Adaeze, who is in charge of transcriptions, and fill it out to the best of my ability. I am hoping that her feedback will clarify some sentences/words that I had difficulty on and so I can improve on the next letter I transcribe from James Harrison.  This week I also did another research quality assurance assignment for the team on mentions. The researchers had a better time identifying mentions and almost all of them were in agreement for their annotations. Here is a look at what this week's assessment letter looked like: Next week I will be beginning group mentions assessments as it was suggested by researchers a couple week

 This week I was out of state to visit schools in DC and Baltimore. While I was away Brook led assessment 2 for the research team on Tuesday's team meeting. Based off the answers for assessment 2 the researchers had a better time filling out mentions: This assessment took about 11 1/2 minutes to complete which I am assuming is because it was a longer excerpt with multiple mentions. Brook informed me that the team suggested we all do a mention together on the whiteboard which I agreed as it can be beneficial in my goal in creating an open, collaborative environment. During the next team meeting I will share results of the assessment while providing answers given to me before hand by Casey Wolf, who is one of the experts on mentions. On Monday (6/24/2024) I will be meeting with the tech team to do a practice run-through of the assessment for Tuesday. I hope I will receive constructive feedback as this team spends more time with mentions than I do.

This week I started my research for PRINT quality assurance plan. I designed a Microsoft Form for the PRINT team to fill out during our weekly meeting. Quality assurance comes with trial and error and this week I faced my first error. The image below is what the form looked like: The researchers had issues completing the form due to the briefness of the except. They asked that I use a more detailed excerpt instead. So, this week with the help of Casey, I created a new form for them to complete for next weeks meeting. Here is what the new form looks like: As you can see there is more mentions to pull from this letter. It will be interesting to see what the researchers will notice, as they are only allowed to document one mention. I will be saving each answers from the forms and reviewing them with the researchers the following week. I also will be developing metrics as I progress in my internship. These Microsoft Forms will be important in finding agreements and disagreements among rese

This week I was out-of-town for vacation but worked remotely for PRINT. I started my week off with a meeting with Brook, Dr. Beiler, and Casey. The first half of the meeting was dedicated to updates on the HSP database which I will be working with Casey on updating to new PRINT protocols. This process will take a while as there are over 500 entries in EndNote that need to be updated. EndNote is the database in which PRINT's repositories are located. I will be primarily working with the Pemberton papers and will need to familiarize myself with Phineas Pemberton's handwriting. Below is an example of his penmanship: Since Casey and I will be working on this project together I will be able to learn from her experience while annotating letters to the best of my ability. The second half of the meeting was dedicated to a Q&A with Brook on two readings on Inter Annotator Agreement. Brook and I went over the main ideas of the articles and what we thought was important to implement i